Here’s what Ellie has to say to B-scoring-man-hating-second-wave-humourless-femnazis like me:

“You are definitely a noughtie girl – you are feminist and proud of it. Not only that but you’ve read all the literature and probably set up a women’s group of your very own to discuss the failings of men and society generally. But feminism has changed this millennium – noughtie girls know there’s more than one way to be a feminist, and that wearing pink doesn’t necessarily rule you out. Read on to find out how women in the noughties are changing the face of feminism.”

“Not only that but you’ve read all the literature and probably set up a women’s group of your very own to discuss the failings of men and society generally.”

You say that as though it’s a bad thing….

“But feminism has changed this millennium – noughtie girls know there’s more than one way to be a feminist, and that wearing pink doesn’t necessarily rule you out.”

Well no shit sherlock. And there was me all these years casting women out of the feminism club purely on the grounds that I didn’t like the colour of the clothes they wore. Sorry, my bad.

“Read on to find out how women in the noughties are changing the face of feminism.”

The problem is I have read on. In fact I’ve read “The Noughtie Girl’s Guide” several times now. And I’m confused.

I don’t get for instance how someone who admits to knowing nothing about feminist history, who admits to having googled “second wave feminist” to find out what it meant, can claim that women are now “changing the face of feminism”. How can you know you’re changing the face of something if you don’t know what that face looked like in the first place? What’s the expression again? “If you don’t know your history you’re doomed to repeat it” I think I’d add to that: if you don’t know your history you’re also doomed to making shallow unsubstantiated generalisations about people and to making yourself look completely fucking ignorant in the process.

What this all boils down to of course, the book and the quiz and the “It’s okay to laugh at rape jokes – here’s one I heard earlier, lolz!” articles, is a bid to make feminism more appealing to younger women. It’s a way of saying: “look, we know some of these older feminists can sometimes be a bit serious and hairy and all that, but you honestly don’t have to be like that if you want to be a feminist.” Which, to be honest, is an approach I don’t really have a problem with at all.

What I do have a problem with though is what I see as an attempt to take the politics out of feminism. An attempt to present feminism as something that encompasses all and everyone, no matter what their ideological position on anything, and in particular no matter what their ideological position on the things that actually matter, the things that actually make a difference to women’s lives: like abortion, or rape for instance (to take just two examples from “The Noughtie Girl’s Guide” where any political/feminist analysis is distinctly lacking) .

Because that’s not what it’s about at all.

There are some politics involved in feminism. And I think it’s patronising in the extreme to assume that those politics are too complicated for younger women to grasp, or that they need to have everything simplified and pinkified in order to get them to sign up to a movement, that at heart, at its most basic, is simply about fighting for their rights as women and girls.

And that’s why I, along with several other feminists, have such an issue with Levenson’s quiz. It’s not a case of “sour grapes” or “cyber bullying,” as Levenson tries to claim: it’s because that quiz is designed to tell young women nothing, zilch, nada, squat, about feminism. And because it’s premised on ridiculous stereotypes and fluffy empty headed shit that no one within the movement actually gives that much of a fuck about.

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Amen sister. The so called image problems that feminism have had to face, which makes it a movement that can be shunned by women who would otherwise subscribe, isn’t down to us not being pink and fluffy enough for little girlies to understand, it’s down to bad press from a scared and patriarchal press. We don’t need to prove that we’re Carrie Bradshaw, we just need to be ourselves.

its about how we have to stop listening to dumb stereotypes about 2nd wave and 3rd wave feminists and stop perpetuating boring and silly myths that do nothing but harm feminism and women.
we need to stand together! and yes i am young and yes i am a feminist and no i am not too stupid or delicate to understand the big issues, i didn’t need to google 2nd wave because i give a shit about women’s history and i may not have all the answers but i have far too much respect for my sisters to make infantile and hurtful rape jokes.

thanks for writing ths cath – i needed to read a sensible and coherent rant because i couldn’t get my one straight in my mind!

Kate C – i really didn’t like the documentary. i thought it was a shame that they didn’t look outside of london, and i got frustrated that they kept asking the young women whether they were angry, whether they wore nail varnish, and also asking for their parents’ opinion. but yes, in terms of sensible, open minded and interesting young women it was good to see!

“What I do have a problem with though is what I see as an attempt to take the politics out of feminism. An attempt to present feminism as something that encompasses all and everyone, no matter what their ideological position on anything, and in particular no matter what their ideological position on the things that actually matter, the things that actually make a difference to women’s lives”

Aargh. There is no comment-box big enough to contain all the potential ranting I could do about all the problems there are with That Book.

The quiz fails right from the start in its relentless presumption that it is addressing a woman that has a boyfriend. (Plus other little indications that presume age & class). And the quiz format chosen to emulate the style of women’s magazines fails for exactly the reason that those kind of quizzes fail – they present a limited range of options of relevance to a limited range of women in a patronising, infantilizing way. I don’t think women need it revealed to them via a handholding quiz that they might have conflicting feelings about feminism and about living in a supposedly post-feminist society.

But it’s that last question about street harassment that has my blood boiling. Your options are to a) accept and encourage it, b) straw-feministly overreact with extreme hostility, c) be annoyed but “secretly you feel flattered”. By presenting options, the quiz shuts out other possibilities – there’s nothing like d) it upsets you and you wonder why when it’s supposed to be a compliment. Or the option to challenge them, or make a complaint

Feminism offers women a way to reinterpret all these dissonances of female experience, a perspective that things aren’t just “the way things are” or that men are not acting benignly, that feelings of upset and anger at, say, street harassment, are valid reactions to men’s dominant, aggressive behaviour, and to the underlying injustice and inequality. Feminism asserts, and provides the means to affirm, that other women feel similarly. And by questioning the status quo, feminism offers the possibility of challenging and changing it.

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"Those of us who love reading and writing believe that being a writer is a sacred trust. It means telling the truth. It means being incorruptible. It means not being afraid, and never lying."
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